


the night will always win

by grim_lupine



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Porn, Come Swallowing, First Time, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 02:25:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13894260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grim_lupine/pseuds/grim_lupine
Summary: The other bed is empty again.Dean closes his eyes. He listens through the click of the glass hitting the table again and again; through the sound of repeated refills; through the shaky exhalations of breath that seem one bare aching step from tears.Dean will sit in teeth-gritted silence through Sam’s uncharacteristic patience by day, his quiet mourning by night, because there's nothing he can say. He can't say he's sorry. He can't pretend he wouldn't make the same decision again.It’s in Dean’s bones: for Sam, he would make that trade a thousand times over.





	the night will always win

**Author's Note:**

> inexplicably i started re-watching supernatural??? so here, have this thing set sometime early season 3, i guess. un-beta'd, so please let me know if you notice something glaring.
> 
> warnings: unsafe sex

In Iowa, Dean hits a bakery and orders himself the kind of apple pie that would make angels cry, flaky, buttery crust parting under his fork, sweet and crisp filling melting on his tongue. He gives a quarter of it to Sam, who pushes it around his plate in slow destruction while Dean pretends not to notice, and eats the rest himself. 

Swallowing his sixth bite, Dean moans a little, sucking his teeth clean. Then he looks at Sam, still — though he knows better — expecting a disgusted look, irritation faintly fondness-tinged. 

Sam has no memory of that look, it seems; these days he stares at Dean big-eyed and mournful, trembling lip and wobbling indulgent smile, and Dean would snap at him for his inability to pretend better if he didn't know that this is, honestly, the best that Sam can do. 

Dean returns to his pie, but somehow, it doesn't quite taste the same after that. 

 

*

 

Dean wakes in the night. The prickling weight of eyes on his back and the too-still air tell him Sam is awake before he even notices anything else. Through slitted eyes Dean can tell the other bed in the room is empty; so for the third time this week Sam must be in the chair by the window, arms wrapped around himself like it's the only thing keeping him from flying apart, watching Dean as if blinking will make him disappear. 

Sprawled on his stomach on top of the covers, Dean feels a little shaky under Sam’s gaze, seeing himself through Sam's eyes: how vulnerable a body can be, the soft bends of his knees, the prickling nape of his neck. The curve of his back can be pierced in an instant; he knows the feel of that one under his own hands. 

I'm _still here_ , Dean doesn't say, neither in comfort nor in anger. He keeps his breathing slow and easy, his posture a loose slump on the bed, feigning sleep. 

At least Sam is kind enough to let him. 

 

*

 

In Colorado, Dean stops at the library looking for a little local perspective and history on their job. He gets it from Lucy, the librarian with a gorgeous low voice and a crooked grin, who spends ten minutes flirting with Dean so thoroughly it makes him preen, flexing the mental muscles needed to banter and keep up. 

Ten minutes after that finds him fucking her over the sink in the white-lit, tiny bathroom in the corner. Lucy grips the arm he has wrapped around her waist with a surprisingly strong hand, raising bruises and pink scratches under her curled fingernails. Lucy likes the look of the two of them in the mirror over the sink, arches her neck into a beautiful curve, winks at Dean when she catches his eye. 

Dean grins at her. It tips his reflection’s mouth wickedly, eyes flashing bright. He shines electric, bursting with vitality, even to his own eyes; so alive it's like he's trying to prove it to someone. 

Lucy sends him on his way when they're done with a little smack on the ass and a laughing, “My next coffee break’s going to be a lot more boring than this one.” 

Dean rides the high of it back to their cramped motel room, sweat drying and cooling down his back, a satisfied throb in his belly. He enters the room to find Sam buried in his laptop and a sheet of paper filled with copious notes, hard at work. 

Sam looks up at Dean as the door shuts behind him with a little _snick_. His nostrils flare slightly as he inhales, and for a moment Dean can see his eyes flash, his jaw clench subtly — 

— but then it seeps right out of him before Dean’s eyes, like water circling a drain. 

“Got anything?” Sam asks mildly: no subtle dig, no indignant, thin-lipped glare. Just this endless, alien patience. 

“Shower first,” Dean says shortly, and retreats.

 

*

 

It’s a faint _clink_ that wakes Dean that night, eyes flying open in the darkness, hand tightening briefly in the sheets. After a second, he hears it again and finally makes sense of it: ice in a glass. A soft _glug-glug_ of liquid follows it, then the creak of a body shifting in the ancient chair. 

The other bed is empty again. 

Dean closes his eyes. He listens through the click of the glass hitting the table again and again; through the sound of repeated refills; through the shaky exhalations of breath that seem one bare aching step from tears. 

Dean will sit in teeth-gritted silence through Sam’s uncharacteristic patience by day, his quiet mourning by night, because there's nothing he can say. He can't say he's sorry. He can't pretend he wouldn't make the same decision again. 

It’s in Dean’s bones: for Sam, he would make that trade a thousand times over.

 

*

 

On the road and in between jobs, they pass by a little gravel parking point overlooking a lake, fringed by looming trees. Dean catches a glimpse of it and keeps looking back in his rearview mirror. He drives another ten minutes until he finally sees a liquor store. 

The _click_ of Dean releasing his seatbelt makes Sam stir from his open-mouthed, soft-breathing sprawl against the passenger-side window. He blinks blearily and rubs his face, wearing a confused look that knocks him back ten years. 

Dean pats him on the head, half-mocking, half-affectionate, and leaves him there. He comes back a few minutes later with a six-pack in tow, and turns around to go back the way they came. 

Sam doesn't ask any questions, but Dean can practically hear them building and building behind the wall of his tight-pressed lips, until Dean pulls into the gravel lot and puts the car into park. 

Sam looks out at the blue-gray water lapping slowly at the edge of the grass beyond the gravel where they're parked, the birds calling distantly and crossing overhead, and the curve of his mouth softens into something Dean can't look at too closely for more than a moment. 

They kill the six-pack slowly, perched on the hood of the car, listening to the soft sounds of the water occasionally drowned out by the whooshing of cars rushing by behind them. It's a crisp afternoon, golden-lit and a little windy. Dean turns up the collar of his jacket and lifts his face to the sun, eyes closed. 

He knows that Sam is watching him; he always knows when Sam is watching him. A fingertip lightly touches the bridge of his nose. 

“You should really wear sunscreen,” Sam says. “You know how you burn.”

“Guess I'll have to get used to it,” Dean says, eyes still shut; then presses his lips together in sudden regret. He doesn't know why he keeps prodding Sam these days, what he's looking for in response. A return to normality, sniping and bickering? The moment when Sam finally lets slip the anger and fear Dean can see him swallowing down day after day?

Doesn't matter. He doesn't need it today. He doesn't _want_ it today. 

When Dean opens his eyes again, he sees Sam’s profile, tight and still like it's carved from stone, throat rippling as he swallows hard. Dean knows the strong angles of his face as familiarly as his own, from a round-cheeked baby to a dimpled toddler all the way up to this giant, tree-trunk of a man who is still, eternally, Dean’s little brother. He still hates that he missed four years of watching Sam grow. He wishes four years could be all he'll ever miss. 

Dean taps the neck of his beer against Sam’s, clasped loosely in Sam's fist, in a wordless apology. Sam turns to look at him with bright eyes, and Dean doesn't say anything, just lets him look until Sam finally relaxes and smiles a little, bumping his shoulder against Dean’s in acceptance. 

They finish the rest of their beer in silence, scooting a little closer together as the wind picks up, watching fat clouds plod slowly across the sky. 

“Should we go?” Sam says at last, with audible reluctance.

“Ten more minutes won't hurt,” Dean says, and hooks his fingers into the hem of Sam’s t-shirt to tug him back down. He'll beg for a little more time for as long as he'll get it. 

 

*

 

Dean wakes up to the dip and creak of Sam sliding into the bed next to him. He rolls onto his back, then his side. Looks up at Sam, leaned against the headboard, half-curled toward Dean like a magnet drawn home. The only light in their room comes from the bathroom, filtering through the slight crack they've left in the door. It's just enough for Dean to see Sam's lower lip pulled between his teeth in thought, his eyes trained on Dean, so intense it makes Dean’s heart rate start to pick up in response. 

Dean opens his mouth, but doesn't get a chance to speak — Sam bends down swift as a bird after prey, and fits his mouth to Dean’s.

It doesn't even register as a kiss to Dean’s mind for a shocked instant; but then Sam shifts a little, chapped lips catching against Dean’s, and the tip of his tongue touches Dean’s lower lip, and that's it: adrenaline shoots down his body like a lightning strike. He fists his hands in Sam's shirt and then leaves them there uselessly, caught between two warring instincts. 

Sam decides for him. Pulls away just far enough that Dean can get a look at his face, lips parted and cheeks a little flushed, steady-eyed. 

“ _Christo_ ,” Dean says stupidly. 

Sam laughs at him, quiet and quick, tapping the tattoo on his chest.

“Just...checking,” Dean says. Slowly he relaxes his grip on Sam's shirt. Tries to keep looking Sam in the eyes, but gets lost in the pink curve of his mouth instead. Sam doesn't help, biting his lower lip again with a flash of white teeth. 

Even for a lifetime of patented Winchester Repression, Dean's buried this one _deep_. Didn't dig it out to look at it in all the years it burned in him, not even when he had an inkling it wasn't as one-sided as he'd thought. He knows what this could do to them. He knows how much more Sam could have. 

“Can’t keep ignoring this,” Sam says, with the resolute set to his mouth that lets Dean know he's utterly fucked. Then Sam continues, “I mean — you might not have much time left.” It’s a wry mimicry of Dean, a little edge of dark humor; but the brief crack in Sam's stubborn surety that he’ll find Dean a way out of this makes Dean's stomach twist. 

“Sammy, you know I'd never — ” Dean starts, a little shaky; he’ll wheedle himself a lot of favors using that excuse, but not this. Never this. 

“I _know_ ,” Sam says, shaking his head. “If I hadn't said anything you'd take it to the — ” He breaks off, swallows. Closes his eyes until Dean can only see the dark fan of his lashes in the bare slice of light. 

When Sam opens his eyes again, they're burning so bright Dean can't look away. 

“I'm running out of time, too,” Sam says quietly. “Don't _I_ get a last wish?” 

Sam's back hits the mattress with such force the whole bed shakes, when Dean surges up and onto him. He doesn't miss a beat — goes boneless under Dean with yearning hands cupping Dean’s face, as Dean kisses him again and again and again, unable to part from Sam's mouth for more than a second. It rocks him to the core: just this, just the wet sliding press of their lips, the sweet moan Sam lets out when Dean coaxes his mouth open with his tongue. He _knows_ Sam, every inch of him; but he doesn't know this, striking new territory with every sweep of his tongue and stroke of his shaking hands. It's enough to make Dean dizzy. 

Dean pulls away to breathe, and almost decides to forget oxygen entirely when Sam strains up to get at his mouth again. Dean strokes Sam’s lower lip in apology with his thumb instead. Breathes out a shaky curse when Sam sucks it into his mouth, rubbing so firmly with his tongue it's like he's trying to leave here with an imprint of Dean’s fingerprint. 

“God, Sammy, let me — I gotta _see_ ,” Dean says in a rough insistent voice. Yanks his thumb out of Sam’s hungry mouth, because if he doesn't go fast he'll never leave there. Blindly, Dean leans over and scrabbles for the switch on the bedside lamp. When he finds it, the bed floods suddenly with golden light, strong enough to make Dean blink back starbursts for a minute.

In the darkness it had felt almost unreal, dreamlike; but now here Sam is, stretched out underneath Dean with a mouth ripe as a peach, waiting. Blinking from the bright light, Sam looks briefly so young it would make Dean’s stomach cramp in guilt, except for the way Sam's looking up at him starry-eyed, like he's getting everything he ever wanted in this world. 

“You gonna get naked now, or what?” Sam says, that demanding little curl in his voice that’s always been for Dean, because a lifetime has taught him that if he asks for what he wants, Dean will give it to him in spades. 

“You can ask nicer than that,” Dean says, because it's also his job to make Sam work for it a little. 

“ _Dean_ ,” Sam says, drawn out, all pleading eyes and little-brother whine, and in this Dean is a weak man, always has been. 

“Spoiled,” Dean says, tsking. Pulls his t-shirt over his head slowly, adjusting the fall of his amulet when it's off. Sam tracks the swing and bounce of it, then slides his gaze down Dean’s chest and back up again, breathing a little faster through his half-open mouth. 

“Your fault,” Sam says, meeting Dean’s eyes. He looks so hungry Dean gets harder just from that — just from Sam looking at him like that, like he's ten feet tall, like he's golden. Dean hooks his thumbs in the waistband of his pajama pants and underwear, skims them slowly down. Sam props himself up on his elbows and watches as Dean bares his cock, his gold-dusted thighs. He turns to throw his clothes over the side of the bed, lets Sam have a good look at his ass, too. 

“God, the number of times I've jerked off to this...” Sam says under his breath. Then he rolls his eyes when Dean turns and grins at him, toothy and smug.

“Come on, Sammy,” Dean says, scooting back on the bed. “Fair’s fair.” 

Sam sits up and gets his own shirt off, then everything else. It’s nothing like Dean’s deliberate striptease, but the smooth grace of his body holds Dean’s unblinking gaze hostage. The way Sam looks under the soft lamplight makes Dean’s mouth water, shadows sharpening the angles of him, the light warming his skin where it falls. Dean’s never before wanted so badly to sink his teeth into someone. To bite the long muscle at the side of Sam’s neck, the dizzying breadth of his shoulders. Nip down Sam’s quivering stomach to see if he can raise a little pink, the color of Sam’s cheeks when he gets some sun, or those times getting fewer when Dean can still make him blush. 

Like now; squirming a little in place, like he still doesn't know how much Dean wants him. 

Dean shows him: puts his mouth all over Sam until he's scrabbling at the back of Dean’s head with fumbling fingers, panting for breath. When Dean drags his lips up Sam’s silken thigh, breathing in the hot scent of him and nosing up for more, Sam grabs him again and says, “No, wait, _I_ wanted to — ”

Dean lifts his head. “You got plans for me, Sammy?” he says, raising an eyebrow. 

“Yes,” Sam says decisively, and winds his legs around Dean to flip them on the bed. Dean lets him, lets Sam push him until he’s sitting up against the headboard, thighs splayed open, Sam crouched between them. Sam bends his head to the slick, ruddy head of Dean’s cock, so close Dean can feel the warmth of his breath. Then he stops.

Sam looks up at Dean. His eyes are gleaming, challenge-bright. 

“Put it in my mouth, Dean,” Sam says softly.

Dean shudders through a wave of arousal so strong he nearly goes _blind_. 

“Yeah?” he pants. “C’mere.” Cock in hand, he teases Sam closer. Grips him by the hair at the last minute and doesn't let him have it. Sam opens his mouth to protest and then pauses, transfixed, as Dean slicks up his own thumb on the head of his cock. 

Dean puts his thumb in Sam’s open mouth, watches his eyes flutter closed. Watches the pouting hungry suck of his mouth, the bob of his throat as he swallows. Again and again Dean feeds Sam the taste of his cock, tormenting the both of them at once: giving Sam the barest hint of what he wants, no matter how greedily, how showily he sucks Dean's thumb in to the base; giving himself only the teasing touch of his thumb to his cock, making himself just watch Sam’s mouth without giving into the urge to stuff it full. 

Finally he can't take anymore. Dean closes his fist around his cock, under the head. Pulls Sam toward him with the hand clasped around the base of his neck. The moan Sam lets out when he gets his mouth on Dean is a sound of pure relief. Dean bites his lip hard enough to clear his head with a flash of pain, fights the need to just shove _in_.

He has more control than that. He only lets Sam have the tip of it; that alone is enough to make Dean break out into a sweat, so turned on his skin feels paper-thin and oversensitive. The heat of Sam’s mouth is incredible; the soft scrape of his tongue makes the muscles in Dean’s thighs tighten up, nearly cramping. 

Sam sucks the head of Dean’s cock with greedy slurps, soft lips mouthing at the vise of Dean’s fist, wordlessly pleading for more. Dean makes him wait until he can't anymore, then gives him the rest. Puts his cock in Sam’s mouth one aching inch at a time, like Sam asked him to. 

It’s the slowest, most torturous blowjob Dean’s ever had. It's _destroying_ him.

The visual would be enough — Sam, eyes closed like it's too much for him, pink-cheeked and pink-mouthed, opened up on Dean’s cock — but then there's Sam's mouth itself, hot and pliant, taking everything Dean gives him and looking for more. Sam can't go all the way down on Dean’s cock, but he sucks what he can take with gluttonous enthusiasm, eyes fluttering open occasionally to catch Dean’s like he's holding onto a lifeline. 

Dean’s aching deep with how badly he needs to come, panting like he's run a marathon. He reaches down and pushes Sam's sweat-damp hair back from his forehead, strokes the side of his face down to the curve of Sam’s mouth, stuffed open with Dean’s cock. He puts his thumb inside Sam’s mouth next to his cock, just to watch Sam try to swallow around it, drooling down his chin. 

“Where do you want it, Sammy?” Dean asks, smoky and low. He knows how to talk to people in bed, and he knows how to talk to Sam; the convergence of the two has brought out something new entirely in his voice, a tender, purring quality, sweetly forceful. He can see Sam respond to it, a shiver rolling through him, blinking up at Dean through half-lidded eyes. “You want it in your mouth?”

Sam looks at him, a lazy, animal satisfaction curled up in his eyes, drunk on it. He takes Dean’s hand and puts it back in his hair. 

Dean’s fingers tighten. Well, that’s all the answer he needs. 

Gripping Sam’s hair, Dean fucks his mouth slowly, watches his cock pull out, spit-gleaming and flushed. Pulls out all the way just to watch Sam’s mouth stay parted open and soft, like he doesn't remember how to close it, like he needs something in it. Pushes back into that sweet pink gape. 

Dean tightens up all over when he comes. Fucks it into Sam’s mouth as he swallows and swallows, throat working, fingernails biting into Dean’s thighs. Dean tries to leave Sam's mouth when he goes soft, but Sam won't let him, digging his nails in harder. His tongue is gentle and absolutely relentless. Dean finally has to pull his hair by the fistful to get him to back away, looking up at the ceiling to catch his trembling breath. 

Sam rises to his knees, swaying a little. His pupils are blown fat; his cock is wet and so hard Dean feels a sympathetic clench in his gut. 

Dean kisses him hard on the mouth, tonguing in for a few hot, devastating seconds. He puts his hand around Sam's cock, just for an instant, just to hear Sam whine against his mouth. Then he pulls away, puts his damp mouth to Sam's ear and says, “I've got you, Sammy. Hang on.” 

His wallet’s on the bedside table. Dean fishes out a packet of lube and squeezes it into his hand. He pumps Sam's cock with some of it, then puts his hand between his legs.

“Fuck,” Sam breathes out, voice raspy and deep. His eyes are unblinking as he watches Dean slick up the insides of his own thighs.

Dean looks up at him, mouth curving into a smirk. “You got the patience to put it in me?” 

“Not a chance,” Sam says, grabbing his own cock, looking barely restrained. 

“Didn't think so,” Dean says, then turns onto his side, looking at Sam over his shoulder in arch invitation. “All right, have at it.” 

A beat. Then Sam is on him. 

The heat of his body scalds Dean from head to toe. Sam throws a leg over Dean’s and pushes his cock between Dean’s thighs, fucking him from the start in greedy, rapid thrusts, like he just can't help himself. 

Dean tightens his thighs together for Sam, gasping noiselessly at the feel of it. Even with the lube slicking him up, the friction is unbelievable. Sam's cock is fever-hot between his thighs, stinging the tender skin. Dean’s gut clenches every time Sam lets out a shaky low moan behind him, every time he kisses the back of Dean’s head, the curve of his shoulder, the nape of his neck, near-reverent. Dean can't get hard again this quickly, but god, is he ever giving it his best shot. 

Sam's toes are curling into the sheets next to Dean’s feet; his rapid-punch exhalations of breath sound almost pained, like he's holding something back. 

“Come on, Sammy,” Dean whispers, crooning. He laces his fingers through Sam’s and pulls their clasped hands onto his belly. 

“Don't want to,” Sam says in his ear, a ragged break in his voice. “Don't want it to be over.”

Dean’s heart throbs in his chest, a vivid, agonized burst. 

“It's not over,” he says, tightening his hand. “I promise. It's not over yet.” 

“ _Dean_ ,” Sam says, and he sounds abruptly frightened, like he's lost, like he's flying apart into a thousand pieces. Dean’s response to that tone is deeply ingrained: he turns at once onto his back and lifts his arm, lets Sam burrow in and cling.

Dean kisses Sam's soft trembling mouth. Kisses his overbright eyes, then his lips again; first the upper with its hollowed indent at the top, then the pouting lower, tasting each one individually. He closes his hand around Sam's cock and strokes, urging him forward. 

The look on Sam’s face is a raw thing, when he spills over Dean’s hand and belly. He looks like he's had a revelation, like he's never known anything sweeter; but his eyes are liquid bright, wounded. 

Dean doesn't say anything. Just pulls him closer. 

Slowly, Sam crumbles in Dean's arms. In the glimpse of Sam’s eyes before he hides his face in Dean's shoulder, Dean sees it: the formless anger Sam’s been swallowing down, rooted in anguish, so vast it threatens to drown. 

Dean knows this grief from both sides now, for all that he wasn't strong enough to bear it for long. Knows how it felt to torture himself with tiny fading memories, smiles and squabbles and awkward hugs, things he didn't know to hoard until it was too late. Would it have been any better if he _had_ known to hoard them? Or would it have been like holding a sip of water in his mouth to combat his thirst for the rest of his life?

“I hate you for doing this to me,” Sam says quietly, voice shaking, damp cheek pressed against Dean’s shoulder. 

Dean kisses the top of Sam’s head, breathing in the scent of his hair. “Love you too, Sammy,” he says; because even when he can't say anything else, there's that. There will always be that.


End file.
